Chandler’s path to a district championship took a detour Friday night, as Jones came to town and left with a 57-28 victory.
The win left Jones atop District 2A-2 with a 5-0 record and Chandler in second at 4-1.
Meeker, which put down Luther last week, and Crossings Christian are tied with 3-2 records. They play this week at Crossings.
Jones scored first to take an 8-0 lead, but Chandler tied it when quarterback Alec Jackson connected with Ty Garver on a 55-yard catch-and-run later in the period.
Chandler stopped Jones on the Longhorns’ next possession and was moving the ball in its own territory when Jackson had to leave the game due to injury.
Chandler came up short on third down and was forced to punt. The attempt went awry, however, and Jones took over the ball on Chandler’s 8-yard-line.
The Longhorns scored two plays later to take a 16-8 lead.
They scored again later in the period, but Chandler put together a drive just before halftime that ended in a 14-yard scoring pass from Braxton Estes to Carson Clagg on a third-and-12 play.
For the conversion, Chandler ran a lateral reverse and pass that worked perfectly. Cruz Jackson took the pitch and, running from south to north, made an on-the-money pass to Sam Hall in the end zone.
That made it 24-16, but Jones scored again just before the half-time horn to go up 30-16.
Jones put up two more scores early in the third quarter before Estes hit Garver for a 65-yard catch-and-run touchdown with just under 42 seconds left in the period.
The pass attempt on the conversion failed, leaving the score 44-22.
Estes closed out Chandler’s scoring with four-yard keeper on fourth down with 5:30 left in the game.
The Lions head to Star-Spencer Friday and close the regular season at home against Luther the following week.
A win in either of those games locks the Lions into second place in the district and gives them a home field game for the first round of the playoffs.
They would face the third-place team from District 2A-1. The race is that district is cloudy once you get past presumptive first-place finisher Millwood. Oklahoma Christian, Chisholm, Alva and Perry are alive competing for the three remaining spots, so Chandler’s opponent would come from one of those four teams.
If Jones wins one of its final two games, it would finish first and play the fourth-place team from District 2A-1.
The winner of the Meeker-Crossings game would draw the second-place team and the loser most likely would get the first-place team, which would appear to be Millwood.